


The Golden Child

by MadasaMoriarty



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Angst, Bad Wolf, Drama, Except Gallifreyan, F/M, Fairy Tales, Family Reunions, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gallifrey, Gen, I'm Bad At Tagging, Protectiveness, Reunions, Romance, Tags Are Hard, Tags Contain Spoilers, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-02-26 00:53:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13224783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadasaMoriarty/pseuds/MadasaMoriarty
Summary: A child given away in the dark. The Doctor pulled across the vortex by a foreign energy. Illusions, spectres, eyes of rich chocolate brown, and a challenge. Possibly the greatest one the Doctor has ever faced.





	1. A Secret Exchange

**Author's Note:**

> This is an old story that's still in progress and needs major editing! Betas welcome!

It was a quiet night in London, a handful of pale stars braving the smog. A solitary car bumbled down the road, splashing through the puddles left by the day's rain. Ms. Harp settled into her bed, tucking the duvet under her elbows and taking up the book from her nightstand. She had finally settled on her place and began to peruse the first paragraph when there was a rambunctious knocking at the door. A glance at the clock showed it to be a quarter past nine, hardly the time for social calls.

Drawing a shawl about her shoulders, she shuffled to the door, opening it slowly and peering at the step beyond. Standing there, holding a bundle of clothe in her arms was a young blond girl, no older then twenty. Her face was flushed with the cold and she kept glancing about with desperate eyes. When they finally settled on Ms. Harp she leaped forward.

"Thank goodness, look I'm in a hurry." She had a thick cockney accent. Stepping forward she attempted to press her cloth burden into Ms. Harp's arms.

"Can I help you?" Ms. Harp asked with alarm, keeping her arms close to her body.

"Yeah, look, I 'aven't got time to explain bu'-I need you to do this.:" Her face was grave and a little panicked as she forced Ms. Harp's arms to cradle the blanket. "I can't-" Her voice broke and some of the determination gave way to grief. "I can't keep her. Least, not yet. I can't-" she laughed bitterly. "I can't even admit she exists. Not to him...not yet." a sort of wild hope filled her eyes and she fixed them on Ms. Harp with steely resolve. "This- this isn't forever, alrigh'? It-" Another broken laugh. "It might no't even be a week, or an hour, he'll come for her. _We'll_ , come for her alrigh'? I just...I need you to take care of her till then."

Ms. Harp gave one feeble nod of her head, not quiet sure what she was agreeing too, or why. The girl nodded back, smiling with relief, her tongue peeking through her teeth. She turned to go, letting the hand that had gripped the blanket through the whole conversation fall back to her side.

"Oh! One more thing, don't - _ever-_ take her to hospital." Fixed under this girl's glare Ms. Harp found herself shaking her head. "Promise." She changed to a nod, fighting to push words past her throat.

"Of course."

The girl gave another curt nod, disappearing down the street. Ms. Harp stood on the porch frozen in shock, the wind picked up a moment later, rushing through the street with a strange, rasping howl. Only when it had settled, and the air began to work through her night gown did she look down into her arms. There, nestled into a dark blue blanket, eyes closed in restful sleep, fingers twitching absently, was a baby. A baby. Ms. Harp glanced down the street one last time and then back at her slumbering new charge. A ripped bit of notebook paper stuck out of the crease in her arm and Ms. Harp removed it gently, flipping it over to read the looping script on the back.

_Gwyneth Jane, daughter of the Doctor._

_...  
_

"So, where to?" Amy asked coming up to lean beside him as he fiddled with the console, Rory flopped into the jump seat with a sigh. He turned another knob, watching the scanner flash and turned to beam at her with his eyes.

"Don't know." He grinned for real his face full of excited apprehension.

"You're the pilot. How can you not know?" Rory asked from his seat, his head thrown back in weary defeat. "It's not like the Tardis can just take us to random planets!"

"Of course she can." The Doctor corrected him crossly, giving him an insulted look.

"She can?" Amy asked, startled.

"Of course! She's a smart old ship, always knows where to go. But that's not what we're doing."

"Then...what are we doing?" Amy asked, leaning in conspiratorially. The Doctor leaned back till there noses were almost touching.

"We, are following a thing."

"A thing?"

The Doctor whirled to face the grumpy Centurion, his smile never faltering.

"Temporal thing. An energy signature working it's way through the vortex. We're following it." His face was utterly proud.

"What is it?" Amy moved around to look at the scanner, but whatever it said wasn't something she could decipher. She thought maybe she saw a solid bit of gold light moving through fluctuating darkness, but whether this was the vortex or just the Doctor's screen saver she was unsure.

"Don't know. Could be dangerous. Could be alien. **Could-** be entirely redundant...Only one way to find out!" He looked around at each of them,eyes sparkling with the promise of adventure, gripping one of the Tardis' countless levers. "Geronimo." With a hearty ding the Tardis took off across the vortex towards one of the biggest adventures the Doctor had ever faced. And it was gonna be...Fantastic.


	2. Chapter 2

"Well..."

The street the Tardis deposited them on looked much the same as any 20th century London road. It had historic brownstones and quaint white townhouses, fire hydrants and telephone poles, a shop awning jutting out halfway down and regular old human people. As far as they could tell it was just earth, as they remembered it, not a few years off from their own time. Amy would have sworn as much too, if it hadn't been for the mist, and the stars.

Energy, there was no other way of describing it, floated through the air down the whole of the street, twisting and glistening, like golden gossamer ribbons, suffusing the air with an unearthly glow. And sprinkled through, like stationary fireflies were stars, small palm sized universes.

"That's interesting." The Doctor mumbled, half an eager smile on his face. Treading carefully they followed him slowly out into the cosmos. After a moment of shock the Doctor's innate energy kicked in and he whirled through the glittering apparition, darting from planet to planet, spinning through nebulae, and peering at black holes and super novas.

"So...where are we?" Amy sidestepped a cluster of red planets, frowning at the angry face they seemed to form.

"What? What do mean _where_? Earth! This is earth! A year or two after your wedding, don't you recognize it?" He twirled with hands out cast, gesturing to all the dingy glory beyond the shifting illusion. She scowled.

"Last I checked _earth_ didn't have li'tl-..." She gestured expressively. "Galaxies, drifting down main street."

"It's not main street, it's baker street, and it doesn't have galaxies drifting down it. Not really, just pictures of galaxies,...projections." he did another slower turn, his eyes roving over the street for real, searching, thinking... "The question is, whose projecting them? And why hasn't anyone noticed..." He tracked several people walking down the street, sidestepping comets and stray whisps of gold, eyes fixed pointedly ahead. The only one that seemed to have noticed at all was a tall, dark haired man in a scarf and long coat, bending over the gutters, and peering at clusters of stars, but the Doctor ignored him, pulling his screwdriver from his pocket. He fazed it over the street, twirling to cover every inch.

"Ah!" Amy's scream reverberated down the street and the Doctor spun quickly, sonic raised but he saw only Rory, standing in the middle of the road, his head gone from his shoulders, replaced by a twirling replica of earth.

"What?" Rory's voice asked as they stared at him.

"Rory...come here..." The Doctor held his hand out and Rory blundered over, his head reappearing the instant he was free of the strange mist. "Interesting..." He soniced Rory's head ignoring the centurion's scowl.

"What happened? What's going on?" Rory asked looking around in confusion.

"Doctor?" Amy asked. "What is it?"

"I'm not sure. Something...new." they shared a glance, and then split it amongst the buildings, scanning every cracked brick.

"Hang on...What's that?" Rory edged down the road, finger outstretched. He walked through constellations and asteroid belts and stopped at a small spot of  _blue._

"Its the Tardis." Amy said pointlessly, coming to stand beside her husband. "Doctor?" She glanced back to where the Doctor stood, staring at his tiny blue police box floating in the air of 20th Century London. "What's the Tardis doing in a projected replica of the universe?"

The Doctor looked around him with new eyes, because if this- entity- knew of the Tardis... then, they knew of him, and possibly... his _companions._

There was _Raxacoricofallapatorius, New Earth, Baydafarn, Cheem..._

_"_ _Rose..."_ Her name was barely a breath, unheard by any one else on the street. "Right. Come along Ponds." Turning he marched up the steps of one of the townhouses and rapped sharply at the door.

"What are we doing?" Amy asked, jogging up beside him.

"We," the Doctor replied in a clipped voice. "Are going to the root of the problem." He said it firmly, unshakably. Because they knew Rose...They knew HIS Rose, and that was most definitely a problem.


End file.
